Dedham Public Schools will once again have to hire a new principal for Riverdale Elementary School.

The current principal, Krista Lucas, will step down from her position on June 30 after two years of service due to her spouse’s job transfer.

School administrators announced at a Wednesday, June 4, School Committee meeting that Kate Conway, a retired principal of Cambridge Public Schools, will be the interim principal for the upcoming school year.

But parents are concerned that the turnover of principals at Riverdale will hurt kids and staff. The former principal, Doris Claypool, was at the school for six years.

"Our concern is for the teachers and the students that are going through what will be set up to be four principals in five years," said Michelle Apuzzio, a parent of a third-grader.

According to Superintendent June Doe, Michael Welch, the incoming superintendent, will hire a permanent principal after he starts his position on July 1. She told parents that they would be involved in the process.

"We’ve had an anticipated change in the administration due to personal reasons of the current principal," Doe said. "The goal is to find the very best person out there and that is hugely dependent on the new superintendent and what his needs are, what he perceives as the leadership needs of the district."

In other business, Holli Armstrong, principal of Oakdale Elementary School, said the school’s 2014-2016 improvement plan is focused on academic excellence, creating a positive learning environment, and reinforcing respect, support and open communication.

Target areas, she said, include answering open response questions and writing for a purpose in English Language Arts and representing and interpreting data as well as measurement in Mathematics. The plan also incorporates test-taking strategies, she said.

"What we found is each year the students are required to do more and more passages with open responses and they were getting really tired," Armstrong said.

Armstrong would like to increase the use of social media by creating a Twitter handle for Oakdale, but School Committee members were concerned because a parent representative would be managing the account.

"We have gone through this with the policy sub-committee several times over the last few years, and we have actually said no twice," member Mayanne Briggs said. "Especially if it’s a parent volunteer. It would be one thing if you had a staff member doing it because there are definite protocols for a staff member doing it."

Chairman Jennifer Barsamian said she supports the idea, but that a policy would have to be developed. She said Twitter is a good tool to "push out information."

Briggs said that she would bring up the issue to the policy sub-committee in the fall.

Staff writer Sara Feijo can be reached at 781-433-8336 or sfeijo@wickedlocal.com. Follow @s_fjo on Twitter. Like The Dedham Transcript on Facebook and follow @DedhamTranscrip on Twitter.